As Duchess Catherine continues to peck away at furnishing her London apartment and her country house—the former was estimated to go under a $1.5 million renovation—London’s Grosvenor House has created something to inspire Kate’s take on at least one room. The hotel recently hired British nursery firm Dragon’s of Walton Street ahead of Baby Wales’s arrival, their mandate to design a quintessential English nursery “fit for a royal baby.” Dragon’s, meanwhile, comes with their own regal pedigree: back in the 1980s, both Diana, Princess of WalesandFergie, Duchess of Yorktapped them to make custom rooms for Princes Williamand Harry and Princesses BeatriceandEugenie,and the company’s famous hand-painted furniture has lured clients likeGwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham, Samantha Cameron, and Madonna.

Today, Dragon’s offers “bespoke” children’s interiors for clients all over the world, and they’ve created quite a range: a boy’s “captain’s quarters” aboard an English explorer’s ship, a girlish lilac garden, and a topsy-turvy ode to the whimsy of Alice in Wonderland, to name a few. So—are they working for Will and Kate? They decline to confirm or deny a patronage, but they didshare with us exclusive interior photos of their Grosvenor project, in which any tot—royal or not—would feel very comfortably installed.

Click to view photos of the suite, officially opening to the public in June, and below, read highlights from our chat with the managing director of Dragon’s, Lucinda Croft, about her royal-worthy designs, Diana’s shopping habits, and her most outrageous client stories.

Lucinda Croft: We wanted to create that really peaceful feel, because when you’re traveling with a baby, one of the things you’ve got to do is send all the signals about “It’s bedtime! It’s naptime!” Doing that in a strange environment can be quite challenging, because they pick up on the energy of traveling—we wanted to create a sort of little oasis in that room, so that the mother would feel like she could withdraw, look after her baby, and have really special times and special memories. So that’s why we went with very pastel colors, and then in this room we already had this palette of raspberry and green, so we wanted to piggyback on that colorway.

When you’re working with the hand-painted materials, how long does it take to create these pieces? I’m thinking especially of the Grosvenor Hotel dollhouse.

I think that took seven days—[the furniture is] all handmade and it’s made in white, and then we have to do a brush finish. So a brush finish leaves brush marks, which are deliberate. And that takes about two to three days, because you have to do so many layers, and then it has to dry. Then the artwork has to go on top, and then that’s a different artist—and then because of all the windows, it’s quite a mathematical challenge. I’m so glad I didn’t have to do it, because I’m hopeless at maths. It’s like geometry, work out the angles—I used a very precise artist; he’s German.

For Beatrix Potter, I’ve been training a new artist, and I thought, I’m going to give her a big chance. Then another two artists painted that table, an artist called Terry, who’s famous for his soldiers—he did the different British icons on the table. And then we wanted a sort of pathway across the table, the idea that we could have a London bus and a taxi, because most children love those.

In total, how many artisans were involved?

Let me count for a second. I think there were over 10 people involved in doing this . . . and everything is hand-done, so it’s lots of pairs of hands that go through it.

Roughly how many commissions do you do a year?

That is so difficult to answer. I don’t think I could even know. We probably have about 150 projects on at any one time—they could be as small as hand-painting a hairbrush for someone, or they could be whole rooms for different clients.

What was it like when Dragon’s got the commission to do Prince Harry’sand Prince William’s nurseries?

I met Princess Diana several times. It was my mum who did the nurseries [of Prince William and Prince Harry]. I haven’t done the math, but I was 17 or 18 at the time, and she was just so lovely and so down to earth—she was such a hands-on mum. She chose everything herself. My mum was so excited. We’re real royalists. There is a famous story in my family of Princess Diana coming in and there was a leak in the shop [the Dragon’s of Walton Street store], and so Princess Diana had to go around the back of the desk and write her own invoice. I remember where I was standing when she came in one time. I was in the window doing the window designs, and I jumped down from the window—and she was just so normal and nice, and she had a really handsome bodyguard. . . . She was just very normal—although she didn’t carry any money at all. So her bodyguard would always come in with the credit card after she came out.

That’s fascinating.

That’s the experience we have with most of our V.I.P.’s—they don’t carry any money. Most of our Arab V.I.P.’s, they don’t even know their address. The more important person they are, they don’t know the details, things like e-mail address. So we get very close to members of their staff. It’s a very intimate thing when you’re working with people and their babies. I’m doing the nurseries of my mother’s clients, which is just so lovely. There’s a lot of T.L.C. that our clients get that they wouldn’t get at Peter Jones. And it lasts forever—it’s the reverse of IKEA. We have a repainting service, so some clients give us the furniture back and we repaint it and, of course, it looks new. So that’s really cool. It can start as little as £3,500 [$5,400], but you know, the world is your oyster.

We have to ask: have the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge approached you about their nursery?

I am just amazed about how much media attention there is in it—it’s just unbelievable. But we can’t talk about any of our clients. When we did it with Princess Diana, we didn’t tell anyone then, either. And then a journalist found out and rang my mum. We just don’t talk about those things—whomever it is.

I’m sure every case is different, but how closely do you work with the client?

It’s a mix. One of my designers went to meet a member of royalty from the Arab world, and they were all having foot massages and eating biscuits when she arrived. I can’t remember what they’re called, but they buy them in bulk, and you can only get them in England. So she did this presentation sitting on the floor to a member of the royal family. And then they had paid Johnny Depp to come have a picture with their child, so Johnny Depp was wheeled out. Afterwards I was like, How surreal was that?! Some of our stories are ridiculous.

The other day this family came in who we know, and they have houses all over the world. The grandfather was in there, and he was looking on the floor everywhere—I said, “You seem particularly interested in the feet of the cot.” And he said, “Yes, I’m just working out which cot I can get on my yacht. I’m going to have to cut the feet off the cot—which one do you recommend?”

Bridget ArsenaultBridget Arsenault is the London correspondent at vanityfair.com and has worked in Vanity Fair’s London office since 2009, before which she completed her Master’s at Oxford University.